Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I join with Senator Collins in thanking Senator Feinstein for her leadership over the long term on matters of national intelligence, but also for a very thoughtful statement today and to express, again, not just gratitude but our real pleasure that she has made a judgment that the proposal we have made to Congress deserves her support as a cosponsor. That means a lot to Senator Collins and me, and I know it will to all the members of our committee. I also thank her for the suggestion she made in her statement about some areas of the bill she would like to work with us to strengthen. I know we would be delighted to do that. Finally, it may have been inadvertent, but I like the idea of the sweet smell of bipartisanship that may overwhelm this bill. Aroma is a better term.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank Senator McCain for proposing this amendment as a part of the package that he and I introduced a while back as a full bill implementing all of the recommendations of the September 11 Commission. This is not in any sense a detraction from the bill Senator Collins and I have brought out. It is in addition to it and would make it stronger. I wish to speak at length on the proposal, but I note the presence on the floor of Senator Feinstein who I am proud to say is a cosponsor of the proposal that Senator Collins and I have put before the Senate. She has been a leader on intelligence matters, one of the first in this Chamber to offer a proposal for reform and reorganization of the intelligence assets of the American Government. Her ideas greatly informed the proposal that we put before the Senate today. I am grateful, as is Senator Collins, for Senator Feinstein's support. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, let me join Senator Collins in thanking Senator Rockefeller across the board--most immediately, to say how significant it is to Senator Collins and me that Senator Rockefeller has joined as a cosponsor of this proposal. Senator Collins and I happen to not only be on the Governmental Affairs Committee, we are on the Armed Services Committee, so we know something about intelligence. Truthfully, we do not claim expertise, and the Senator has expertise. As we have discussed, Senator Frist and Senator Daschle were very wise in giving our committee jurisdiction because we are the committee on governmental reorganization without a particular interest. But to do our job well we depended on the members, the leaders of the other subject matter committees to counsel with us and to help turn out the best product we could. We sent letters to all the relevant committees, and the Senator responded magnificently. The Senator's imprint is all over this bill. His statement today was eloquent and rose to the national responsibility. I appreciate it greatly. The problem for Senator Rockefeller is that Senator Collins and I are now not going to let him leave the Senate floor for the remainder of the debate--well, occasionally. The Senator's informed involvement in this legislation will help the Senate do the right thing, which is to pass this bill and hopefully get it enacted before we leave so we can get it going for our intelligence services. I thank the Senator for all he has done.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am truly proud to join with Chairman Collins in presenting to the Senate this historic bipartisan legislation, the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. Senator Collins deserves enormous credit for shepherding this bill through the Governmental Affairs Committee and for involving so many interested parties to produce transformational reform, which, when implemented, will make all Americans safer than we are today. It has been truly a personal pleasure to work with her and other members of our committee to produce the legislation we have brought before the Senate this afternoon. On the day after the September 11 Commission report was issued and the bipartisan leadership of this Senate, Senator Frist and Senator Daschle, gave the Governmental Affairs Committee jurisdiction to take up and discuss and report back to the full Senate on the executive branch recommendations for intelligence reform, Senator Collins and I spoke and we agreed from the beginning that this was the moment to forget party labels and focus on the national security interests. After all, not only were we attacked 3 years ago, we are under imminent threat of another terrorist attack. Al-Qaida and the other terrorist groups have made absolutely clear they intend to strike us again. The news reports today feature warnings from our Government to various levels of Government throughout the country to be prepared and on guard for the potential of terrorist attempts to disrupt our election process, right up to and through election day. So Senator Collins and I understood from the beginning that we had to work together to do what was best for the country as we saw it. There would be differences of opinion, but we would do everything we could to make sure they were not partisan. That is exactly the tenor of the markup our committee conducted for 2 days last week. It was one of the best 2 days of my 16 years as a Senator. When it was over, we had more than 40 amendments filed with the committee. Not a single amendment was decided on a partisan vote. One particular Democratic colleague said to me: For 2 days it was actually like we were legislating, the reason we came here in the first place. That is absolutely right. We produced a solid, bold bill to transform our intelligence community to meet the challenges of an age of terrorism. We present it to the Senate with a confidence that the momentum that has been created by the 9/11 Commission, by the families of victims of September 11 appealing to us for action, by our own committee's nonpartisan work, will carry through the Senate, the House, the conference committee, and we will get this critical job done and in law as soon as possible, certainly this year, hopefully before the election. I call this transformational reform because transformational reform is exactly what is necessary to face the enemy of today. Terrorists working across national boundaries are brutal. They are inhumane. They strike, most of all, undefended targets, and they adapt to meet new circumstances. They are not going to be defeated solely, or perhaps even largely, in the end by military power or with the help of an intelligence system and community that were organized to fight the Cold War and helped win the Cold War. We need to restructure our intelligence capabilities to meet the challenges of 21st century warfare, and that means the war on terrorism. That is what the legislation Senator Collins and I are presenting today will do. We owe a great debt to the seminal work of the 9/11 Commission and to their staff whose recommendations we relied on in drafting this bill. The Commission spent a year and a half studying the weaknesses in our national defenses that left us vulnerable on September 11, 2001. They interviewed more than 1,200 witnesses, reviewed literally millions of documents, held 12 public hearings, and produced a compelling narrative, chilling in its details and implications. Under the strong leadership of Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton, this bipartisan Commission made 41 recommendations to strengthen our country against terrorists. The two that they have called the most urgent--that is, the most time sensitive to act on--a strong national intelligence director, and a national counterterrorism center, form the centerpiece of the legislation we put before the Senate today. We owe a deep debt of gratitude as well to the courageous families of those who died on September 11. We are here today because they turned their personal grief into an inestimable force for change, playing a vital role in getting the 9/11 Commission established in the first place, working relentlessly to help the Commission through the rough patches it faced, and embracing and championing its final recommendations. They are a mighty moral force. I continue to be awed and inspired by them in this debate. I will not forget their loss and their commitment to make sure that we reform our Government so that no other Americans face similar losses from 9/11 type attacks. When the Commission released its report on July 22, very few would have predicted that legislation would be on the Senate floor today and the Senate would be poised to debate the most far-reaching reforms of our Nation's intelligence community in half a century. In fact, many predicted it would never happen. Most people thought it certainly wouldn't happen this year. Maybe next year. But the 9/11 Commission confirmed what we knew--the work of protecting our Nation from terrorist attacks cannot wait and must not be delayed. Business as usual on these matters is not an acceptable option. During August and early September, in fact beginning at the end of July, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee held, as Senator Collins said, eight hearings on the Commission's recommendations and drafted a bill on their work. Last week we held a 2-day markup, considered more than 40 amendments, and voted the measure out of committee unanimously, with amendments adopted, good give and take, thoughtful discussion, negotiation on wording that in the end strengthened the authority and the position of national intelligence director. Following the example of the 9/11 Commission, our committee members did work, not as partisans, though we are in the midst of an election campaign; we worked as Americans, concerned about the security of our fellow Americans and the responsibility we have to protect them. That is a much more compelling interest than any partisan political interest that any one of us may have. Although we have acted with speed, we have also acted with deliberation. Our legislation is based not only on the comprehensive work of the 9/11 Commission I have described but on the earlier work of the joint House and Senate Intelligence Committees in their inquiry into matters of intelligence, on the expertise of scores of experts who have been thinking about this subject for decades, and on critical reports, as Senator Collins indicated, that date back not 10 or 20 years but 50 years, making similar recommendations to the ones we have made. It is a tragedy that it took 9/11 to shake us out of our bureaucratic lethargy to be on the edge of doing what should have been done 50 years ago. The fact is, we are not moving too fast. Three years have passed since the devastation of the attacks of September 11. The 9/11 Commission has stated--and I think this says it all--``We are safer. But we are not safe.'' That is why we are moving so swiftly in this proposal to modernize the management of our intelligence agencies, to make sure we get the maximum in national security for the billions of dollars we are investing. Our enemies continue to plot against us, and intelligence is the first line of defense against these plots. As the Commission report noted: Not only does good intelligence win wars, but the best intelligence enables us to prevent them from happening altogether. These are not ordinary times. Our citizens are still at risk. Our military is on a wartime footing and in action, deployed abroad. So, too, we must be on wartime footing and deployed here at home. September 11, 2001, reminds us that we can no longer afford to put off reform. In its extensive report, the 9/11 Commission literally indicted the status quo in America's intelligence community and insisted on change. The report said: As presently configured, the national security institutions of the United States Government are still the institutions constructed to win the Cold War. The Cold War is over. We are now engaged in a wholly different conflict: a long-term war on terror. That is why the old systems of intelligence, the old structures must give way to new and more effective ones that meet our current threat. A big part of the problem with the old structure, the Commission found, is that it has no leader. Lee Hamilton, vice chair of the Commission, said: A critical theme that emerged throughout our inquiry was the difficulty of answering the question: Who is in charge? Who ensures that agencies pool resources, avoid duplication, and plan jointly? Who oversees the massive integration and unity of effort to keep America safe? Too often, the answer is no one. Our intelligence community is like an army without a commanding officer, a football team without a quarterback. It doesn't work; it is not acceptable, not with the challenges we face. No one below the level of the President is charged today with the responsibility of overseeing a diffusion of organizations spread across 15 agencies in our intelligence community. No one today has the authority to knit together the efforts of these disparate elements; therefore, no one is accountable for mistakes. Senator Collins showed a chart which portrays the changes our reform proposes. For comparison, here is our best effort to show the current system. You see the President, but then you see stovepipes--CIA, Defense, Homeland Security, State, et cetera--without a leader. We can't expect the President, with all the demands on the highest office in our Nation, to be on a daily basis coordinating this community which spends billions and billions of dollars every year--so stovepipes but not coordination. That leads to some of the shortcomings that Senator Collins so ably and eloquently dramatized. In fact, the Commission's report describes over and over again the consequences of the absence of a leader of our intelligence community today. Senator Collins referred to George Tenet's call to war against terrorism, a directive sent to all of the agencies of the intelligence community on December 4, 1998. What was done in response to that call to war? Nothing. Why? Because most of the members of the intelligence community didn't think they had to do anything. The Commission concluded that Tenet's declaration ``had little overall effect on mobilizing the CIA or the intelligence community'' because he didn't have the power. He was not in control. The fallout, as we all know, was a frustrating series of missed opportunities and an agonizing failure to piece together good information that different agencies had gathered--the failure to connect the dots. We have a lot of able people and extraordinary capacities in our intelligence community. Nobody in the world can do all that we can do in intelligence. But if you don't bring it together in one place, if you don't have coordination and leadership, literally one arm doesn't know what the other is doing, and the national security suffers and the terrorists gain. At its core, the configuration of the intelligence community today prevents us from drawing upon the experienced people, the ample resources, and the extraordinary information that are available within the community. Some of the problem is this lack of leadership I have talked about. Some of it is the top-to-bottom bureaucratic organization that the stovepipes on the chart show. Too often, each of the 15 intelligence agencies reside in their own universe, walled off from alternative points of view, failing to share information, and adjusting too slowly to new and emerging threats. As the commissioner put it on page 353 of the 9/11 report: Information was not shared, sometimes inadvertently or because of legal misunderstandings. Analysis was not pooled. Effective operations were not launched. Often, the handoffs of information were lost across the divide separating the foreign and domestic agencies of the government. I depart from the quote. Even though the terrorists don't make that foreign and domestic divide, they are coordinating their activities; they are at war against us without regard to bureaucratic or foreign and domestic divides. The Commission said that: The Agencies [of the intelligence community] are like a set of specialists in a hospital, each ordering tests, looking for symptoms, and prescribing medications. What is missing is the attending physician who makes sure they work as a team. Today, the head of the intelligence community--whom we call the DCI, Director of Central Intelligence--only has effective control over the funds of one agency within the entire community, and that is the CIA. That means that roughly 80 percent of the national intelligence budget is not even controlled by the Director of Central Intelligence. We may have won the Cold War with that structure, but as has been made painfully clear, it is not enough for the war on terror, if we are to learn many lessons the hardest way possible. And agencies are doing a better job now sharing information and better coordinating their activity, but the system is still not organized--certainly not as well as it should be to get maximum security from the billions of dollars American taxpayers invest every year in the intelligence community. Listen to this story. Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, spelled out the problem before our committee. He told of traveling to Pakistan and Afghanistan to visit representatives of various U.S. agencies working in the border areas there to determine, he said, how they were working together, how they were integrating their hunt for Osama bin Laden. Surely, it is one of our most critical national goals since September 11 to find bin Laden. So Zelikow asked his host: Well, where is the joint strategic plan for the hunt for bin Laden? Where is the person who is in charge every day of the integrated strategic plan, [who] updates that plan every day of how we're hunting bin Laden? What Zelikow found was that 3 years after September 11, ``there is no such joint plan. There isn't a joint integrated planner for that hunt.'' I imagine that will shock and unsettle the American people as much as it did the members of the Commission and the members of our committee. That is why we want to put this national intelligence director and national counterterrorism center in charge. The legislation we are presenting today deals with these deficiencies by adopting two of the three critical Commission recommendations. Under our proposal, the national intelligence director would be the President's primary intelligence adviser but also the leader of the national intelligence community, with strong budget, personnel, and tasking authorities to break down the stovepipes and knit the agencies together into a powerful, agile, effective network. Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton told our committee they recommended a national intelligence director: Not because we want to create some new ``czar'' or a new layer of bureaucracy to sit atop the existing bureaucracy. We come to this recommendation because we see it as the only way to effect what we believe is necessary: a complete transformation of the way the intelligence community does its work. The national intelligence director will have strong authority to reprogram and transfer money and people, so that he or she may react quickly to changing threats, and direct intelligence resources when and where they are most needed. We heard from many witnesses before our committee about how critical it was to give the new national intelligence director budget authority if we wanted that director to forge the unity of effort we are looking for. The Director of Central Intelligence currently has authority to reprogram funds but not real budget authority, and even the reprogramming authority is not exercised frequently because the process takes from 3 to 5 months to complete. Imagine that. The threat of terrorism is daily, and it requires agility, quick action, and reprogramming funds to fight it, but reprogramming can take 3 to 5 months. We heard from the former Director of the CIA, Jim Woolsey. He described what he called the Washington version of the Golden Rule: Whoever has the gold makes the rules. That is why we want to give the new national intelligence director real budget authority. Let me quote Woolsey: If budget execution authority is given to the national intelligence director, he will or she will have a much better ability to say to the Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense, ``Look, I sympathize, I understand. I know this fluent Arabic language linguist is a very rare asset. But you didn't hear me. I really need her or him.'' Unlike the current DCI, the new director would not run the CIA, while simultaneously trying to manage the entire intelligence community. We are going to separate them. The 9/11 Commission told us you cannot be both the President's principal intelligence adviser, the head of the intelligence community, and also run the CIA every day. So we have separated those two functions. Our proposal thus puts the director in charge of the national intelligence program, which will encompass all programs and intelligence activities concerned with ``national'' intelligence--the interests of the entire nation rather than just one department. Remember that our intelligence community ultimately serves the President as Commander in Chief, but the President is the head of our Government overall, representing the public interest. I know there are concerns about how these changes might affect the American military, so let me be very clear about this. Intelligence for use by the military services must continue to be a top priority of the national intelligence director and of our intelligence community. Support of our warfighters will always be a primary concern of our intelligence community, but it is not the only concern. Under this organization, the warfighter will benefit because as the national intelligence director takes charge, our overall intelligence will become more effective, including for the warfighter. As Senator Collins made clear, the Department of Defense will retain control totally over the tactical military intelligence budgets. Finally, the national intelligence director will have the assistance of a newly created Cabinet-level joint intelligence community council-- Secretary Powell, when he appeared before us, compared this to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the military--headed by the intelligence director as well as the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security, as well as the Attorney General. This council will advise the Director of Intelligence and ensure that the timely execution of the Director's priorities within each member's respective Department occurs. That reform, we believe, will bring direction and focus to the intelligence community's work. The national counterterrorism center, the second urgent major recommendation made by the 9/11 Commission, is designed to overcome the failure to share information, to break through the stovepipes, to coordinate activities to make sure, to the best of our ability, that never again does 1 agency of our Government see 2 terrorist suspects coming into our country and not tell the border security agencies and those 2 end up as 2 of the 19 who attacked us on September 11. Our legislation establishes the center with two key functions: First, to build on the Terrorist Threat Integration Center now housed at the CIA and ensure that intelligence from all sources in our Government is integrated and analyzed. In other words, this is the place where we can be sure the dots will be connected. Second, it will develop interagency counterterrorism plans and assign agencies responsibilities and monitor and report on implementation of the plans. The obvious point here is if we are going to have everybody at the same table sharing the intelligence they collected, the analysis they make of it, it makes every bit of common sense to authorize them to plan together what to do about it. This counterterrorism center--and I note the occupant of the chair is a member of the Armed Services Committee--would be comparable to the combatant commands, the joint commands that were created pursuant to the Goldwater-Nichols Act of the mid-eighties. These operations that would be planned could be on the larger strategic level, such as how do we win the war on terrorism, how do we win the hearts and minds of people in the Muslim world, and, of course, they also should be on the more tactical level: What can we do together to more quickly capture or kill bin Laden? What can we do together about this terrorist cell we see in some American city? Here is what the Commission chairman and vice chair said about this: Today, we face a transnational threat. That threat respects no boundaries and makes no distinction between foreign and domestic. The enemy is resourceful, flexible and disciplined. We need a system of management that is as flexible and resourceful as is the enemy. We need a system that can bring all the resources of Government to bear on the problem--and that can change and respond as the threat changes. We need a model of Government that meets the needs of the 21st century. We believe that the National Counterterrorist Center will meet that test. So, too, of course, Senator Collins and I and the members of our committee, whose bill we put before you today, would establish such a center. This is a critical reform. It will triumph over the bureaucratic inaction and failure to share information described by the Commission throughout its report. Let me just give this example from the report. In late 1999, the National Security Agency, which overseas the collection of signal intelligence, analyzed communications to and from and about some people they were watching who turned out to be future terrorist hijackers of September 11. NSA correctly concluded that someone named ``Nawaf'' and his accomplice named ``Khalid'' were part of ``an operational cadre,'' and that ``something nefarious might be afoot.'' But the NSA, and that particular analyst and others, did not think its job was to pursue further the identities of these men because it saw itself as a support agency that should energetically respond to requests for information, listen to conversations, et cetera, but not initiate investigations. It turns out there was additional valuable information right in the NSA computers regarding these two terrorists which, had it been checked, might well have thwarted the 9/11 plot. The Commission tells us how the CIA tracked Nawaf and Khalid to Kuala Lumpur and then lost them when they traveled to Bangkok. The evidence is that one of the men's passports indicated that a possible destination and interdiction point was the United States. Yet no one alerted the Immigration and Naturalization Service or the FBI, and so these 2 arrived in Los Angeles unhindered on January 15, 2000, and became 2 of the 19 September 11 terrorist attackers. The Commission report notes the response of different officials to this information. There was confusion about who was supposed to do what. The head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center at the time did not recall why the case fell through the cracks or off the radar. The Director of the al-Qaida unit in CIA did not think it was his job to determine what actions should or should not be taken in a case such as this. Under our proposal, the national counterterrorism center will put in place interagency orders to make sure rules and responsibilities for counterterrorism missions are clear. It will monitor the implementation of those plans to make sure information so critical does not fall through the cracks of bureaucratic stovepipes again and that no one drops the ball again and that the American people are never left unprotected again. As the Commission recommended, the national intelligence director will also have authority to create new national intelligence centers beyond the Counterterrorism Center to integrate capabilities across the intelligence community to focus on other threats, such as weapons of mass destruction, or geographic areas, such as North Korea. You can imagine a national intelligence center on North Korea or Iran or, more specifically, on what we are so worried about today: the development of a potential nuclear weapons capability in Iran. This would bring everyone in our Government who knows anything about such a capability together to share information and analysis, and develop plans. Senator Collins talked about the information-sharing parts of our report, and I will not go over that any further except to say that I am proud of what we have done here. We built on some excellent work done by the Markle Foundation which, quite rightly, suggested the old need- to-know standard in intelligence ought to be broken to allow more sharing at every level of our Government to maximize protection of the public. I do want to say that Senator Durbin has for years championed the idea that we need a concerted effort to make sure that information is shared throughout our Government in a systematic way, using the best of modern information technology to gather, pool, and understand information--a Manhattan Project, as Senator Durbin likes to call it, for information sharing. His ideas are reflected in substantial parts of this report, and I thank him for it. We have a very important section on civil liberties. Again, Senator Collins referred to this, and I will just say briefly that throughout our history, America has always balanced the joint concerns and commitments to security, without which there is no liberty, and liberty. We seek security for a purpose, which is to protect our liberties so as not to compromise the liberties that define us as Americans. As the 9/11 Commission said, we are at a stage in our history, after having been attacked as we never were before on September 11, where the Government will have to play a more active role in American life. We want to make sure as that happens that the liberties of the American people are not compromised. There is a broad section on independence--which in some senses goes beyond what the 9/11 Commission was specifically responding to, and responds to other concerns that people in both parties and both Chambers have had--to make sure that the intelligence product the President gets and that we in Congress get is independent and objective. Senator Rockefeller brought to this matter his extraordinary expertise as ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. He deserves special thanks from our committee for the many contributions he made to the bill that we put before the Senate. I mention him because he had uniquely the idea of creating an ombudsman within the National Intelligence Authority who will serve as an independent counselor for complaints, but more than that, an independent reviewer of analytical products throughout the intelligence community to ensure that the intelligence advice the President and Members of Congress get is free of bias of any kind, political or otherwise. In private industry, there is not a business I know that can afford it, that does not have some kind of quality control system. In some sense we do not have a quality control system for the $40 billion-plus we spend on intelligence, and this office of ombudsman will be the quality control office for American intelligence. Senator Rockefeller is also the author of the national intelligence reserve corps idea. It is a great idea, allowing in these demanding times for temporary reemployment of retired intelligence community employees with specialized skills to help us meet emergency mission requirements. Senator Levin helped improve Congress's access to intelligence, and to require that the information is free from bias, with substantial input to this bill as a member of our committee. Senator Pryor, too, added significantly to the bill. Because of his efforts, we will have reports from the Government Accountability Office, the GAO, providing us with an assessment as to how this legislation is actually being implemented, enabling Congress to be more effective in our oversight. I hope it will give some sense of assurance to those who wonder how this will all work that we have built in look- backs to make sure that if it is not working in all of its particulars as we want it to, we will know that and we will act on it. The 9/11 Commission report tells us: Our biggest weapon of defense is our intelligence system. If that doesn't work, our chances of being attacked are so much greater. So our major recommendation is to fix that intelligence system and do it as fast as possible. Chairman Tom Kean said: Not only does good intelligence win wars, but the best intelligence enables us to prevent them from happening altogether. Intelligence has always been critical to warfare. In many ways, it is even more critical to the war on terrorism because we face an enemy unlike any we faced before, whose basic mode of operating is to strike undefended targets, to strike not at the military but to strike at undefended, innocent civilians. Intelligence is critical so we can see and hear what our terrorist enemies are planning so we can stop them before they strike at us again. Senator Collins and I have taken the words of the Commission to heart and are offering this historic and transformational reform in direct response to those words. We have hewn very close to the Commission's intelligence reform recommendations and are proud and grateful to have the explicit support of the chairman, vice chairman, and the members of this extraordinary bipartisan Commission. Yes, we are moving quickly but we are moving quickly for a reason. As I have said, our terrorist enemies are not mired in bureaucratic tradition. They are flexible. They are agile, brutal, and inhumane. We must be, in all of our humanity, with all of our values, as powerful, agile, and quick to change as they are. If we hesitate, we will truly pay the consequences again. The Deputy Director of the CIA's counterterrorism center, Philip Mudd, summed it up when he told our committee: We need clear, clean, short lines of command and control. Opportunities to roll up a terrorist or prevent an attack demand immediate action. This is a war of speed. Those are important words to remember. I expect some of the most significant amendments that will be presented on the floor will be those that I am afraid will blur the clear, clean, short lines of command and control. Preserving the strength of the national intelligence director is one of the critical aims that Senator Collins and I have as we go forward with this debate. FBI Director Robert Mueller said: Don't create a national intelligence director with no real authority, because you will have the worst of all worlds then. Interestingly, that was echoed by the now former Acting Director of the CIA, John McLaughlin, when he said, and I paraphrase with apologies, the only thing worse than doing nothing is to create a national intelligence director without real authority. Then it is just another layer of bureaucracy. We have to establish that 21st century management system we have talked about. So in a Congress that unfortunately over the years has grown increasingly partisan, in the middle of an election season which is inherently political and partisan, Senator Collins, the members of our committee, and I, on a bipartisan basis, putting aside our partisan labels to work exclusively for the national security interests, present this proposal to the Senate. Every member of the Governmental Affairs Committee worked hard, with some disagreements, and ultimately supported the proposal. There is now a significant political consensus for change. Momentum is building and I am confident our colleagues in the Senate will rise to the challenge and take strong action in the national interest. We are, after all, a nation at war, a war like none we have ever fought. We must maximize and transform our ability to defend our Nation to meet this new threat. We cannot do that without the best intelligence possible. Senator Collins and I are confident that the proposal we put before our colleagues today will result in just that, the best intelligence possible. It deserves the support of our colleagues in the Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today as a cosponsor of the legislative efforts of my friends and colleagues Senators McCain and Feingold to close the ``527'' loophole that threatens the health of our Federal elections by allowing unlimited amounts of soft money to dictate the terms of debate in defiance of the letter and spirit of the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. These 527 groups have become nothing more than multi-million dollar megaphones advocating the special interests of wealthy individuals and groups. And it will only get worse in years to come. 527 groups have been growing since the mid-1990s thanks to loopholes resulting in part from puzzling decisions by the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Election Commission. The 527 groups would get tax-exempt status from the IRS by claiming they existed to influence elections. But then they would avoid election disclosure laws by denying to the Federal Election Commission they were trying to influence elections because they did not use the magic words like ``vote for'' or ``vote against.'' The result was a tax exemption for groups influencing Federal campaigns, but a lack of disclosure so voters did not know who the groups were, who they gave their money to and where they got their money from. Congress partially closed this loophole in June 2000, by passing the first significant campaign finance reform measure in a quarter century. This legislation was passed out of the Government Affairs Committee, of which I was chairman at the time, and signed into law later that year by President Clinton. The new law required 527 groups to give notice of their intent to claim tax-exempt status; to disclose information about their large contributors and expenditures; and to file annual informational returns along the lines of those filed by virtually all other tax-exempt organizations. But this only partially closed this loophole. Despite the McCain- Feingold campaign finance reforms, 527s can still raise unlimited amounts of cash from just a few wealthy individuals or groups whose interests and motivations are likely unknown to the American public. The Federal Election Commission could have closed this loophole but has failed to act despite massive evidence that 527s are skirting Federal election law. This is both an end-run around our campaign finance laws as well as a direct assault on our democracy. Elections should be determined by millions of individual voters who cast their ballots uninfluenced by the millions of dollars of advertising paid for a by a few individuals or groups with special interests. Reform of the 527 loophole does not mean silencing these groups or taking away their right to put their message on the air. All this reform would require from 527s is to follow the same rules as other political advocacy groups when it comes to raising and spending money on federal elections. The money must come from individuals in amounts no larger than $5,000, with no contributions from corporations or unions allowed. If the 527 groups' support is as widespread as they claim, they will have no problem getting their message out. We started the job in 2000. We knew it was not enough. Now it's time to finish the job and get unlimited soft money out of the system. The voices of millions of average Americans should not be reduced to a whisper because they can't afford the price of the pulpit. And the voices of a few should not shout like thunder because they have the money to command the air waves.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today as a cosponsor of the legislative efforts of my friends and colleagues Senators McCain and Feingold to close the ``527'' loophole that threatens the health of our Federal elections by allowing unlimited amounts of soft money to dictate the terms of debate in defiance of the letter and spirit of the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. These 527 groups have become nothing more than multi-million dollar megaphones advocating the special interests of wealthy individuals and groups. And it will only get worse in years to come. 527 groups have been growing since the mid-1990s thanks to loopholes resulting in part from puzzling decisions by the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Election Commission. The 527 groups would get tax-exempt status from the IRS by claiming they existed to influence elections. But then they would avoid election disclosure laws by denying to the Federal Election Commission they were trying to influence elections because they did not use the magic words like ``vote for'' or ``vote against.'' The result was a tax exemption for groups influencing Federal campaigns, but a lack of disclosure so voters did not know who the groups were, who they gave their money to and where they got their money from. Congress partially closed this loophole in June 2000, by passing the first significant campaign finance reform measure in a quarter century. This legislation was passed out of the Government Affairs Committee, of which I was chairman at the time, and signed into law later that year by President Clinton. The new law required 527 groups to give notice of their intent to claim tax-exempt status; to disclose information about their large contributors and expenditures; and to file annual informational returns along the lines of those filed by virtually all other tax-exempt organizations. But this only partially closed this loophole. Despite the McCain- Feingold campaign finance reforms, 527s can still raise unlimited amounts of cash from just a few wealthy individuals or groups whose interests and motivations are likely unknown to the American public. The Federal Election Commission could have closed this loophole but has failed to act despite massive evidence that 527s are skirting Federal election law. This is both an end-run around our campaign finance laws as well as a direct assault on our democracy. Elections should be determined by millions of individual voters who cast their ballots uninfluenced by the millions of dollars of advertising paid for a by a few individuals or groups with special interests. Reform of the 527 loophole does not mean silencing these groups or taking away their right to put their message on the air. All this reform would require from 527s is to follow the same rules as other political advocacy groups when it comes to raising and spending money on federal elections. The money must come from individuals in amounts no larger than $5,000, with no contributions from corporations or unions allowed. If the 527 groups' support is as widespread as they claim, they will have no problem getting their message out. We started the job in 2000. We knew it was not enough. Now it's time to finish the job and get unlimited soft money out of the system. The voices of millions of average Americans should not be reduced to a whisper because they can't afford the price of the pulpit. And the voices of a few should not shout like thunder because they have the money to command the air waves.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, America's Historically Black Colleges and Universities have served as precious portals of opportunity for African-Americans since the first, Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, was founded 167 years ago. I join all Americans in commemorating these proud institutions of higher learning this week, which the President has proclaimed ``National Historically Black Colleges and Universities Week.'' Mary McLeod Bethune once said, ``We firmly believe education has the irresistible power to dissolve the shackles of slavery.'' It was this moral commitment to education for African-Americans that inspired Ms. Bethune to found her famous day school in Daytona, FL--now known as Bethune Cookman College--100 years ago. It was also this ideal that inspired the establishment of 130 other Historically Black Colleges and Universities nationwide. And the ``irresistible power'' of these institutions for the African-American community is clear. Fully 42 percent of all the PhDs earned each year by African-Americans are earned by graduates of HBCUs. But despite playing a central role in our Nation's economic, cultural, social and spiritual life, HBCUs have been physically eroding, victims of chronic neglect and underfunding. A 1990 General Accounting Office study concluded that 712 properties on 103 HBCU campuses nationwide were in need of repair or renovation, at an estimated cost of $755 million. That is why 2 years ago I joined with Congressman Jim Clyburn in the cause of repairing, restoring, rebuilding, and revitalizing HBCUs. With the support of Senators Landrieu, Miller, and others, our legislation to authorize $50 million in new funding for HBCUs passed the Senate in January 2003, and was signed into law by the President in February of that year. We appropriated $3 million for the program last year, and hope to continue such robust funding this appropriations cycle. I saw firsthand the effect that this legislation can have. When I visited Allen University in South Carolina in 2002, I went to Arnett Hall--a building that had been transformed from an eyesore into a beautiful and stately facility with the help of Federal funds. In the past, students and faculty who walked into the dilapidated hall would be left with the clear impression that we are neglecting these historic treasures. Now, they visit the restored hall and are left with the impression that we consider Historically Black Colleges and Universities central to our history and to our future. Our HBCU legislation was an important step to fulfilling the dream, as Dr. Martin Luther King famously captured it, of an America true to its creed that we are all created equal. Each of these 130 institutions of higher learning, educating 300,000 African-American students, is a living memorial to the dream of equal educational opportunity for all-- living memorials we are morally bound to preserve. This week, let us recall the proud heritage and valuable contribution Historically Black Colleges and Universities make to our Nation, and redouble our efforts to keep their doors open for future generations.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to proceed as in morning business.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, it is good to see you after the recess. I thank my colleague and dear friend from Arizona, Senator McCain, for his comments. I support him in substance and in spirit, which is to say the urgency of Congress reacting to the report of the 9/11 Commission. It was shortly after September 11 that Senator McCain and I introduced legislation, with Senators Specter, Bayh, and others, creating the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. We believed--and we know so many others agreed--that the Nation needed to know as clearly and definitively as possible what had happened, why it had happened, and what could be done to prevent such a heinous attack from ever happening again. In particular, most understandably and movingly, the families of the 9/11 victims rightly demanded that we learn all we could from the tragedy that took their loved ones from them. In its 20-month existence, the Commission, headed by Governor Thomas Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton, brought a laser focus to its task. The Commission insisted on talking to the people and seeing the documents that could help them understand and tell the full story. The result is not only a definitive account of what happened on September 11, but also a very thoughtful and compelling analysis of why it happened and where we must go from here. And I take it to be a sign of not only tribute to the Commission but of the public concern and interest in what the Commission had to say, that the published volume of its report, unlike any I have known of in a long time, remains a bestseller throughout our country. So today, Senator McCain, Senator Specter, Senator Bayh, and I join together again to introduce the 9/11 Commission Report Implementation Act of 2004. This legislation embraces and expresses in legislative language all 41 of the recommendations in the Commission's final report. Some of those, involving calls to restructure the intelligence community, have already been the focus of extensive debate. Others, such as the proposals to crack down on fraudulent identification documents or to build new bridges to the Muslim world, have gotten less discussion. But they are all--each and every one of them--the product of the outstanding and diligent work of the Commission and therefore deserve, indeed command, our attention. We did not attempt to pick and choose which of the 41 recommendations should be considered or legislated, or to edit the Commission's policy conclusions. Indeed, there are one or two areas where I might take a different approach to the concerns the Commission has raised. But the Commission's recommendations should be our starting point. And I believe in many cases, probably most, they should be our ending point as well. Introducing this legislation is the fulfillment of the promise we made on the day the Commission issued its report: that we would express its proposals in legislation. At that time we had no idea whether anything would happen on the Commission report in August or September or October. It was that night that Senators Frist and Daschle, our bipartisan leadership, asked our Governmental Affairs Committee to assume responsibility for considering the Commission's report and making a set of proposals to the Senate no later than October 1. This proposal we now introduce today will go to the Governmental Affairs Committee, formally or informally, to inform the work it is doing. The Governmental Affairs Committee now has the ball and will report to Congress, and is on a schedule, I am pleased to say, to report in advance of the deadline set by Senators Frist and Daschle, in advance of October 1. So what does the Commission and therefore this legislation call for? The Commission's final report depicts a nation that was woefully unprepared for the attacks of September 11. As the Commission concludes: We need a new strategic vision to confront terrorism and a new unified effort to carry out that strategy. Such unity can only be achieved through a dramatic transformation of the status quo of our key organizations and policies. That is the first order of business. The Commission has described how, in the course of its investigation, it repeatedly asked this question: Who was in charge prior to September 11, and who is in charge today? And it never received a satisfactory answer. In fact, Governor Kean and Congressman Hamilton testified to us before our Governmental Affairs Committee that they still cannot point to some one individual in charge of the American intelligence effort, its enormous human and technological assets, and, therefore, no one who is personally accountable. This is unacceptable. This legislation rightly creates a national intelligence director to serve as head of the intelligence community and principal adviser to the President for national intelligence matters. The director will have strong budget, resource, and personnel authority to shape priorities and break down the kinds of turf barriers and stovepipes that stood in the way of our Government pulling together in one place all the information we knew prior to September 11-- information that might well have prevented the attacks of September 11 from occurring. These powers are far stronger than the current authorities exercised by the Director of Central Intelligence. This will create the capability and the accountability for someone to truly lead a unified intelligence effort that will, in turn, greatly benefit the specific fight against terrorism. This intelligence director will operate through a new agency, to be called the National Intelligence Authority. This is not a large new bureaucracy, but rather a command, control and coordination center to achieve a unified intelligence effort. Although the Commission originally called for this office to be created within the White House, numerous experts counseled against this and the Commissioners themselves now agree with that counsel. As a result, this legislation creates the National Intelligence Authority as an independent entity. To help guarantee the government-wide antiterrorism cooperation that did not exist pre-9/11, the legislation also creates a National Counterterrorism Center, patterned on the joint commands of the Department of Defense, drawing on expertise from throughout the intelligence community. This center will serve as an analytic fusion center on terrorism, and will also have responsibility to develop operational plans for counterterrorism initiatives, and then to track and monitor the operations' implementation. As such, the center will build on the promise of the new multi-agency Terrorist Threat Integration Center it would replace, but go beyond that model to create an even more robust center that combines analytical and operational capabilities. As recommended by the Commission, the legislation also provides for the creation by the National Intelligence Director of a number of national intelligence centers focused on either specific topics like weapons of mass destruction or specific geographic areas such as the Middle East. These centers will bring together the most experienced intelligence experts from across the intelligence community on a given issue or region, and can be created or eliminated as needed, giving us the flexibility to hone in on evolving priorities. I am pleased these intelligence reform proposals have already been the focus of numerous hearings, and these issues, as I have said, will be under active consideration in the Governmental Affairs Committee in the coming days. The work on this legislation and the work that the Governmental Affairs Committee is doing has proceeded distinctly, separately, but collaboratively, and work on each has informed and, I believe, strengthened the other. I hope--I know the cosponsors of this legislation share that hope-- the package we are introducing today will be of real help to the Governmental Affairs Committee as it frames the legislation it--we-- will report out to the Senate. I am confident the Senate can actually begin to consider it well before the end of September. The intense debate over the Commission's recommendations on intelligence reform may have obscured the sweeping proposals the Commission made in other areas--very strong and important proposals on border and transportation security, on information sharing, on national preparedness and congressional oversight. Those proposals are included in this legislation as well. As a result, we hope its introduction will jump-start debate and consideration of those other vital reforms. First, the Commission stressed we must do all we can to stop this problem at the source--that is, to alter the conditions and dynamics that give rise to terrorism in the first place. This legislation includes the recommendations to strengthen our efforts to fight international terrorism using such tools as diplomacy and foreign aid. For instance, the legislation would increase U.S. foreign assistance to Afghanistan and renew our commitment to Pakistan. It would enhance our outreach to the Muslim world through U.S. broadcasts to the region, educational exchange programs and a fund to boost educational opportunities for Muslim youth. This will be a long and difficult challenge, however, and we must assume international terrorism will be with us for years to come and prepare accordingly. In addition to the intelligence community reforms I have already mentioned, the Commission calls for a range of new programs and policies to combat terror. Information sharing is one such critical step. Terrorism has made the homeland part of the frontlines, but too many government officials still believe information related to terrorist threats must be carefully hoarded among a select group. Even colleagues within the intelligence community are often not trusted with vital information, much less officials outside the national security elites or in state and local government. We must break down these information barriers and engage a far broader community in the task of fighting terrorism. This will would create an urgently needed information sharing network to break down the information stovepipes that currently hamper our efforts to stay one step ahead of the terrorists. The network, which is modeled on a proposal by a task force of the Markle Foundation, would consist of policies and information technology designed to facilitate and promote sharing of terrorism information throughout the Federal government, with state and local agencies and, as appropriate, the private sector. The President will be required to submit an implementation plan to Congress, including clear deadlines, assignment of responsibilities and budget requirements. The proposal includes safeguards for privacy and civil liberties. The bill includes critical provisions to restrict terrorist travel-- the strategies and methods by which terrorists can, and did, come to this country and position themselves for attacks. It would expand our efforts to collect and utilize intelligence regarding terrorist travel strategies and methods. The legislation also requires an integrated screening system to ensure adequate screening at the nation's entry points and to access transportation systems and critical infrastructure. Complementary provisions in the bill require stronger document requirements for all travelers, including citizens, to enter the United States; acceleration of the automated biometric entry and exit system known as U.S.-Visit; and improved security for identification documents such as driver licenses and birth certificates. In the area of transportation security, the 9/11 Commission warned against the government's heavy focus on passenger aviation to the near exclusion of other modes of transportation. As its Final Report states, ``[o]ver 90 percent of the nation's $5.3 billion annual investment in the [Transportation Security Administration] goes to aviation--to fight the last war.'' Yet we are investing little in protecting the 14 million Americans who use transit systems each weekday, or safeguarding our port systems that handle millions of shipping containers each year. What is lacking, the Commission states, is ``a forward-looking strategic plan systematically analyzing assets, risks, costs and benefits.'' Following its recommendations, this legislation calls for a comprehensive transportation security strategy to assess risks and set priorities across all modes of transportation. It also seeks to close ongoing gaps in aviation security by requiring the Transportation Security Administration, rather than the airlines, to screen passenger names against a consolidated terrorist watchlist. Additional aviation- related measures include explosives screening for all passengers and their carry-on bags, accelerated research and deployment of explosives detection technologies, and measures to improve the security of cargo traveling on passenger aircraft. To help deter terrorist attacks and minimize the effect of any attacks that do occur, we must improve our preparedness capabilities and this legislation includes the Commission's recommended steps to do so. The bill would require that homeland security preparedness grants be distributed solely on the basis of criteria related to threat and risk, eliminating the per state minimum in current law. It would facilitate first responder communications by assigning certain radio spectrum to public safety agencies for their use--an important step toward solving the critical challenge of enabling first responders to talk to one another during an emergency. Fighting terrorism is a challenge for our entire national community and the Commission also stressed the importance of preparedness within the private sector. This legislation requires the Department of Homeland Security to promote a voluntary preparedness standard for the private sector. It also presses the Secretary of DHS to complete efforts to inventory the nation's critical infrastructure, assess the threats and vulnerabilities regarding these critical assets, and ensure there are measures to protect them. The Commission recognized that these new policies and programs will raise important issues regarding privacy and civil liberties and called for a new Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to ensure the protection of these liberties as laws and policies are developed and implemented to protect the nation from terrorism. This legislation creates such a board, which will consist of five individuals appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. In addition to advising the President and federal agencies, the board will have strong authority to conduct investigations and oversight of government actions in the war on terror. Finally, as we look to the changes the Commission has urged for executive branch structures and programs, we cannot neglect the Commission's call to reform our own structures and its indictment of the status quo of congressional oversight of intelligence. We have to clean and reshape not only the executive branch, but we have to clean out and reshape our own house. The Commission concluded that the Intelligence Committees of the House and Senate are not organized currently to provide the necessary leadership and oversight for intelligence and counterterrorism, and that jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security is also too broadly dispersed. The legislation we are introducing today incorporates the mandate of the Commission that each Chamber reform its rules to create a more powerful Intelligence Committee and to consolidate oversight of the Department of Homeland Security in a single committee in each Chamber. Clearly, we have our work cut out for us. But nothing is more important than to respond not just in a timely but in an urgent way to the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, and to do so, as the Commission itself did, in a way that puts partisanship aside and our national security first. The group of us introducing this legislation-- Senators McCain, Specter, Bayh, and I--stand shoulder to shoulder across party lines to achieve a safer nation, to protect the American people at home. We are confident, as we go forward, that our colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join us. There will be differences of opinion. It would be shocking if there were not. Because the recommendations of the Commission represent bold change and dramatically alter the status quo, differences of opinion will naturally occur. They ought to occur. But I am confident in the end they will not be partisan. In the end, we will act and act quickly to implement much of the 9/11 Commission's report so that we can say to the American people, particularly those who lost loved ones on September 11, that we have taken action, done whatever we possibly could to prevent a terrorist attack such as the one that occurred on September 11, 2001, from ever happening again. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I have the high honor and great personal privilege of coming to the Chamber this afternoon to extend my congratulations to everyone at ESPN. All of us who are ESPN sports fans and viewers and those at the network itself are celebrating 25 years of excellence by this remarkable group of people in sports broadcasting. As a sports fan and a Senator from Connecticut, I speak as one who is very proud that this American dream has occurred in our State, located in Bristol, CT, and a tremendous citizen of the State which brought almost 3,000 jobs to Connecticut. We are very proud in a very direct sense and very grateful to ESPN for all they contribute to Connecticut. I must say, when I have been traveling, and at the end of a long day when I get to the hotel room and turn on the TV, there is nothing more comforting than turning on ESPN and knowing that signal is coming to me right from Bristol, CT. I say this is an American dream story because ESPN was the idea of two people, a father and son, the Rasmussens, who thought originally that they would like to find a way to broadcast University of Connecticut sports events to people around the State on cable. Consulting some experts I believe at RCA, they found they could buy satellite time to do that, and then one of the folks at RCA said to them: Incidentally, it will cost you the same amount of money to broadcast around America and the world via satellite as it will in Connecticut. And that began 25 years ago ESPN, the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, which is today the worldwide leader in sports. It started small and ended big, going strong, and all as a result of hard work and a lot of innovation. I had the privilege of visiting ESPN's studios in Bristol, CT, last week. It is really a campus now. I had the thrill of touring the ESPN new digital center. This was about as good as it gets for someone who grew up not dreaming of being a Senator but dreaming of being a Major League baseball player, a center fielder, for that matter--not a preference for political inclinations, not a left fielder or right fielder but a center fielder. The closest I got to that dream is what I did that day sitting at the anchor desk on the brandnew, very impressive sports center studio set with none other than the closest thing the sports world has to Walter Cronkite, the honorable Chris Berman. It was a lot of fun and a great treat. I also got the chance to look at the new studio we will soon be seeing on the NFL programming and then next year on the baseball programming. There is a lot of excitement there. As we celebrate ESPN's 25th anniversary, I offer my congratulations on a magnificent first 25 years to George Bodenheimer, ESPN's president, and to the almost 3,000 employees of ESPN who have changed our lives as sports fans and changed so much for the better in the life of the greater Bristol community. Chris Berman, in addition to my comparison--perhaps a little overstated--to Walter Cronkite, has been the great originator of nicknames. The most famous and the one I love best is when he called a particular baseball player Bert ``Be Home'' Blyleven. I could go on. I watched the ESPN retrospective on their first 25 years last night. I did notice in the show that one fan held up a sign that kind of got even with Chris Berman, and it said: ``Chris, beast of Berman.'' Let that speak for itself. In any case, probably the best tribute one could pay to this extraordinary network and the people who work at it is that as you look back at the 25 years, to paraphrase Berman himself, no one could have guessed that this network could go all the way. It has gone all the way, and it will just keep on going for the next 25 years, more successful than the first 25 years, and beyond. So thanks and congratulations to all the people at ESPN. I think the most fitting one-word tribute I can use to close a celebration on the Senate floor of ESPN's first great 25 years is to say simply and enthusiastically: Booyah. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, in the mid-1980's President Reagan joined with Democrats and Republicans to fashion an effective strategy to confront the challenges we then faced from the Japanese. It's time to reconsider our competitiveness strategy, this time in response to the Chinese and many other emerging free enterprise economies. The Reagan approach--appointing a bipartisan commission on industrial competitiveness, chaired by John A. Young, president of Hewlett Packard Co., and supported by the Democratic Congress--remains the most effective way to proceed, and today I am introducing legislation to do just that. Still known as the Young Commission, this distinguished group of leaders from large and small businesses, labor, and academia led the nation in a dialog on ways to strengthen the competitiveness of the U.S. industry in both domestic and foreign markets. Its recommendations and remedies were widely adopted in the late 1980's and 1990's and account for the unprecedented growth we experienced--much coming from America's high tech sector. But our competitive circumstances have changed and the Young Commission vision needs to be reconsidered and refreshed. The 2.7 million jobs we've lost since 2000 is a bitter reminder of the economic crisis we faced in the early 1980's. Back then Japan had emerged as a major competitor invading our markets with advanced products at lower prices. Sony, Hitachi, Nikon, Toyota, Honda and other rising Japanese industrial giants had cast a shadow of anxiety over the American public. Plant closings and layoffs became widespread as our trade deficit with Japan ballooned and production shrank with rising imports. And the Paul Volcker interest rates imposed to break the back of inflation had crushed the weaker American firms. We had two choices: succumb or fight. Fortunately, led by the kind of practical vision espoused by the Young Commission, the United States learned how to fight and rose to the challenge with objective analysis of our strengths and weaknesses, hard decisions about government's role, and investments in entrepreneurs and high technology fostering the longest expansionary period in our 200 year history. Wise decisions were made in the 1980s and we cashed in on them in the 1990's. The strategy that worked then is not sufficient now. World markets are now undergoing a momentous change that requires a re-assessment of our competitiveness strategy for this new century. As the Japanese challenge developed in the early 1980s, the response of our two political parties became a polarized debate about ``industrial policy.'' Republicans favored deeper and deeper tax cuts to stimulate job growth which--together with massive defense spending-- sent the deficits through the roof. Some Democrats pushed for an Industrial Development Bank to rescue failing firms and protectionist policies. Neither side thought it could compromise without risking the support of its political base, and we faced a political deadlock on economic policy. Twenty years later, does all of this sound quite familiar? The Young Commission brought all sides to the table and enabled each to acknowledge the hard facts that shaped the debate. It proposed the first generation of reforms that became a bipartisan competitiveness agenda. Public-private collaborations instead of industrial supports, and research and development investments in information technology became a foundation for the economic boom of the 1990's. Their recommendations provided the roadmap that led to the longest period of economic growth in our history. Today, the challenges we face are exponentially larger and more complex. We've entered an information age where intangible assets such as innovation and knowledge are the new keys to competitive advantage. These intangibles--including worker skills and knowledge, informal relationships that feed creativity, new business methods, and intellectual property--are driving worldwide economic prosperity. According to a 1998 study by the Brookings Institution 85 percent of company assets are now considered intangible, a significant jump from 38 percent in 1982. In an age where these knowledge-based assets are difficult to patent or copyright, intellectual property rights are difficult to enforce, and information crosses borders freely and instantaneously, the first Young Commission doesn't give us all the answers. We need a strategy where change is both inevitable and necessary, as companies leapfrog their own technology and continuously reap the rewards that go to innovators. This 21st century rat race--constant insecurity, constant competition, and constant change--presents an opportunity for all, yet it will be a nightmare for the unprepared. This is our fate for a good reason--the United States won the cold war's battle of ideas. The outcome is what we wished for--free enterprise is on the march, socialist state planning is discredited, and new competitors (principally China and India, but also Canada, Mexico, Ireland, Malaysia, and Taiwan) can deploy world class talent not fearful of international competition. American economic supremacy-- our seeming birthright since the Second World War--has come to an end. Now we have to fight for every morsel on our economic table. The competitors we now face have world class engineering and science talent as well as low wages. The challenge now extends beyond a concern over foreign competition on manufacturing to ominous trends in favor of global outsourcing of the services sector, including high end technology jobs. The drive for increased customization, speed, and responsiveness to customer needs has multiplied the pressures for productivity and quality. Our entire innovation ecosystem is under stress, including the ties between basic research and commercialization, competition for capital and technology, and adaptive business models. As we have done in building fighter aircraft that puts unheard of G force stress on pilots, we now need workers who can thrive on knowledge overload. Because our workforce no longer has the security of certainty and stability, we need to give it the confidence and tools to adapt continuously to innovation and change--in a global melee of shifting upstart competitors. The American economy is the most adaptable in the world--with a well educated workforce, efficient capital markets, and the zeal of generations of entrepreneurial immigrants. But we seem not to have noticed that the rate of global change is accelerating. The warning signs are everywhere. We are not just losing some high wage jobs--we may be losing critical parts of our innovation infrastructure, and with them, our long-term competitive edge in the global marketplace. As long as emerging nations such as China and India continue to produce more and more science and engineering graduates, invest in their infrastructure, and implement targeted industrial and trade policies to strengthen their research and development and attract foreign investment, doing nothing will slowly and silently erode our economic and national security. As our own giants like GE, TI, Intel, HP, and Microsoft cast a shadow of anxiety over American workers by going offshore, we must proceed with a coordinated and sustainable vision to strengthen our innovation infrastructure. America's dependence on foreign capital to finance excessive government and consumer debt is an ominous trend which threatens our future innovation. The much higher savings rate of many of our competitors gives them ready access to capital necessary for investing in productivity-enhancing research and technologies. To meet these challenges, we first need an injection of bipartisan political will and that's not easy to find in Washington these days. It is time to unleash a new, bipartisan and updated Young Commission, charged with analyzing the impact of global economic changes on the American economy, including the offshore outsourcing problem, and offering nonpartisan proposals to preserve our innovation infrastructure and create more high-wage American jobs. The legislation I am introducing today creates a 22-member bipartisan Commission on the Future of the U.S. Economy to make specific recommendations on a broad range of issues related to the development of our Nations' skill-base, innovation capacity and the other factors needed for the knowledge and information economy. The Commission is to report back to Congress within 18 months. Numerous groups concerned about the future of the United States economy have begun to address the rising challenge of sustaining our competitive advantage in this new global economy. I first would like to thank Dr. Kenan Patrick Jarboe from Athena Alliance for helping to develop key ideas and providing invaluable advice as my office considered this legislation. I would also like to acknowledge the significant and thoughtful work the Electronic Industries Alliance has provided in formulating ideas for a new competitiveness agenda. I also trust that the major effort in progress under the National Innovation Initiative of the Council on Competitiveness will provide a creative groundwork for this important Commission. I request unanimous consent that a section-by-section summary of the bill and the text of the bill itself appear in the Record following my remarks.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, in the mid-1980's President Reagan joined with Democrats and Republicans to fashion an effective strategy to confront the challenges we then faced from the Japanese. It's time to reconsider our competitiveness strategy, this time in response to the Chinese and many other emerging free enterprise economies. The Reagan approach--appointing a bipartisan commission on industrial competitiveness, chaired by John A. Young, president of Hewlett Packard Co., and supported by the Democratic Congress--remains the most effective way to proceed, and today I am introducing legislation to do just that. Still known as the Young Commission, this distinguished group of leaders from large and small businesses, labor, and academia led the nation in a dialog on ways to strengthen the competitiveness of the U.S. industry in both domestic and foreign markets. Its recommendations and remedies were widely adopted in the late 1980's and 1990's and account for the unprecedented growth we experienced--much coming from America's high tech sector. But our competitive circumstances have changed and the Young Commission vision needs to be reconsidered and refreshed. The 2.7 million jobs we've lost since 2000 is a bitter reminder of the economic crisis we faced in the early 1980's. Back then Japan had emerged as a major competitor invading our markets with advanced products at lower prices. Sony, Hitachi, Nikon, Toyota, Honda and other rising Japanese industrial giants had cast a shadow of anxiety over the American public. Plant closings and layoffs became widespread as our trade deficit with Japan ballooned and production shrank with rising imports. And the Paul Volcker interest rates imposed to break the back of inflation had crushed the weaker American firms. We had two choices: succumb or fight. Fortunately, led by the kind of practical vision espoused by the Young Commission, the United States learned how to fight and rose to the challenge with objective analysis of our strengths and weaknesses, hard decisions about government's role, and investments in entrepreneurs and high technology fostering the longest expansionary period in our 200 year history. Wise decisions were made in the 1980s and we cashed in on them in the 1990's. The strategy that worked then is not sufficient now. World markets are now undergoing a momentous change that requires a re-assessment of our competitiveness strategy for this new century. As the Japanese challenge developed in the early 1980s, the response of our two political parties became a polarized debate about ``industrial policy.'' Republicans favored deeper and deeper tax cuts to stimulate job growth which--together with massive defense spending-- sent the deficits through the roof. Some Democrats pushed for an Industrial Development Bank to rescue failing firms and protectionist policies. Neither side thought it could compromise without risking the support of its political base, and we faced a political deadlock on economic policy. Twenty years later, does all of this sound quite familiar? The Young Commission brought all sides to the table and enabled each to acknowledge the hard facts that shaped the debate. It proposed the first generation of reforms that became a bipartisan competitiveness agenda. Public-private collaborations instead of industrial supports, and research and development investments in information technology became a foundation for the economic boom of the 1990's. Their recommendations provided the roadmap that led to the longest period of economic growth in our history. Today, the challenges we face are exponentially larger and more complex. We've entered an information age where intangible assets such as innovation and knowledge are the new keys to competitive advantage. These intangibles--including worker skills and knowledge, informal relationships that feed creativity, new business methods, and intellectual property--are driving worldwide economic prosperity. According to a 1998 study by the Brookings Institution 85 percent of company assets are now considered intangible, a significant jump from 38 percent in 1982. In an age where these knowledge-based assets are difficult to patent or copyright, intellectual property rights are difficult to enforce, and information crosses borders freely and instantaneously, the first Young Commission doesn't give us all the answers. We need a strategy where change is both inevitable and necessary, as companies leapfrog their own technology and continuously reap the rewards that go to innovators. This 21st century rat race--constant insecurity, constant competition, and constant change--presents an opportunity for all, yet it will be a nightmare for the unprepared. This is our fate for a good reason--the United States won the cold war's battle of ideas. The outcome is what we wished for--free enterprise is on the march, socialist state planning is discredited, and new competitors (principally China and India, but also Canada, Mexico, Ireland, Malaysia, and Taiwan) can deploy world class talent not fearful of international competition. American economic supremacy-- our seeming birthright since the Second World War--has come to an end. Now we have to fight for every morsel on our economic table. The competitors we now face have world class engineering and science talent as well as low wages. The challenge now extends beyond a concern over foreign competition on manufacturing to ominous trends in favor of global outsourcing of the services sector, including high end technology jobs. The drive for increased customization, speed, and responsiveness to customer needs has multiplied the pressures for productivity and quality. Our entire innovation ecosystem is under stress, including the ties between basic research and commercialization, competition for capital and technology, and adaptive business models. As we have done in building fighter aircraft that puts unheard of G force stress on pilots, we now need workers who can thrive on knowledge overload. Because our workforce no longer has the security of certainty and stability, we need to give it the confidence and tools to adapt continuously to innovation and change--in a global melee of shifting upstart competitors. The American economy is the most adaptable in the world--with a well educated workforce, efficient capital markets, and the zeal of generations of entrepreneurial immigrants. But we seem not to have noticed that the rate of global change is accelerating. The warning signs are everywhere. We are not just losing some high wage jobs--we may be losing critical parts of our innovation infrastructure, and with them, our long-term competitive edge in the global marketplace. As long as emerging nations such as China and India continue to produce more and more science and engineering graduates, invest in their infrastructure, and implement targeted industrial and trade policies to strengthen their research and development and attract foreign investment, doing nothing will slowly and silently erode our economic and national security. As our own giants like GE, TI, Intel, HP, and Microsoft cast a shadow of anxiety over American workers by going offshore, we must proceed with a coordinated and sustainable vision to strengthen our innovation infrastructure. America's dependence on foreign capital to finance excessive government and consumer debt is an ominous trend which threatens our future innovation. The much higher savings rate of many of our competitors gives them ready access to capital necessary for investing in productivity-enhancing research and technologies. To meet these challenges, we first need an injection of bipartisan political will and that's not easy to find in Washington these days. It is time to unleash a new, bipartisan and updated Young Commission, charged with analyzing the impact of global economic changes on the American economy, including the offshore outsourcing problem, and offering nonpartisan proposals to preserve our innovation infrastructure and create more high-wage American jobs. The legislation I am introducing today creates a 22-member bipartisan Commission on the Future of the U.S. Economy to make specific recommendations on a broad range of issues related to the development of our Nations' skill-base, innovation capacity and the other factors needed for the knowledge and information economy. The Commission is to report back to Congress within 18 months. Numerous groups concerned about the future of the United States economy have begun to address the rising challenge of sustaining our competitive advantage in this new global economy. I first would like to thank Dr. Kenan Patrick Jarboe from Athena Alliance for helping to develop key ideas and providing invaluable advice as my office considered this legislation. I would also like to acknowledge the significant and thoughtful work the Electronic Industries Alliance has provided in formulating ideas for a new competitiveness agenda. I also trust that the major effort in progress under the National Innovation Initiative of the Council on Competitiveness will provide a creative groundwork for this important Commission. I request unanimous consent that a section-by-section summary of the bill and the text of the bill itself appear in the Record following my remarks.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I rise today with Senator Collins to introduce legislation that would promote the sharing of homeland security information across all levels of our Government, and to provide funding and support necessary to enable our first responders to communicate better with one another than they are able to do now during a terrorist attack. I am delighted that the chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Collins, is my lead cosponsor on this legislation, and that another member of the committee, Senator Akaka, is a cosponsor, as is Senator Clinton. One of the most painful and enduring lessons we should have learned from the September 11 attacks is that information about terrorist activities must be shared among Federal and other agencies to protect the American people's security. Unfortunately, almost 3 years after the attacks we have still not seen the kind of improvement and information sharing at all levels we need to have. The widely respected, nonpartisan Markle Foundation, in alliance with the Brookings Institution and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has looked at this problem at length and concluded that an entirely new approach is needed to the sharing of security information. According to the Markle Foundation, the cold war paradigm that strictly limited access to information is simply ill-suited to the challenges we face today in an age of terrorism. Sharing information among relevant law enforcement agencies and other public agencies is vital to protecting our people's security precisely because we cannot predict from which direction the first signs of potential attack will come as we pretty much could during the cold war. Yet the Federal Government has still developed neither a comprehensive strategy nor actual policies to change the 50-year-old cold war paradigm. We have to catch up quickly to win the war on terrorism. Equally troubling is that too many first responders still lack, believe it or not, the basic ability to talk to one another when responding to emergencies, including, of course, a terrorist attack, because their equipment does not communicate directly. We use a complicated term called ``interoperability'' to describe this situation. One of the most painful parts of the September 11 attacks in New York was the loss of more than 300 New York City firefighters and other law enforcement personnel who perished inside the collapsing Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. The look-backs at that day, probably including the one we will hear tomorrow from the September 11 Commission, lead a lot of people to conclude that we lost a lot of New York's finest-- firefighters, police officers, other public servants--because they could not communicate with one another on the equipment they had. That is no longer acceptable. The legislation we are introducing today addresses those challenges. First, we authorize $3.3 billion over 5 years to provide reliable and consistent funding to help law enforcement agencies around the country find solutions to this so-called interoperability problem. We create an Office of Information Sharing within the Department of Homeland Security to develop and implement a national strategy to achieve that goal. It simply is outrageous that those who are in uniform every day to protect our security cannot communicate with one another in a time of emergency because we have not given them good enough equipment to do that. Second, our legislation would require the Secretary of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the intelligence community and other Federal agencies, to establish a broad information exchange network modeled after the Markle Foundation recommendations which would break out of the cold war paradigm and allow full sharing of security information. Third, our legislation requires implementation of performance measures and genuine incentives to encourage employees to implement the changes that are necessary. As part of the continuing fight to keep America safe from terrorism, the test of our generation, all the cultural, technological, and administrative barriers that impede the flow of critically important homeland security information among different levels of Government and among agencies at the same level simply must be broken down. That requires an act of will and leadership, and then it requires funding. It is not going to come cheaply, but security of the American people never does come cheaply. We have the best military in the history of the world because we have invested in it. We are only going to have the best security at home from terrorism if we invest with similar generosity. A nonpartisan task force of the Council on Foreign Relations recommended that the Nation spend double what Senator Collins and I are proposing in this bill to ensure dependable interoperable communications. What we are asking seems like a lot of money, but it is half of what an independent group thinks is necessary to protect our Nation. This legislation will help us develop a new structure, a new paradigm of information sharing to guarantee that first responders and preventers can communicate effectively with one another and with other governmental agencies when they respond to terrorist attacks or any other emergencies that threaten the safety or well-being of people throughout our country. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that text of the legislation Senator Collins and I are introducing today be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to forge a comprehensive and effective strategy for our homeland security. Before 9/11, we did not truly perceive the threat of terrorism on our own soil, and what homeland security efforts we did have underway were badly divided. Dozens of agencies responsible for pieces of our homeland security were scattered across the Federal Government, and were largely unconnected to state and local officials and first responders on the front lines in our Nation's cities and towns. There were confusing overlaps and, more critically, treacherous gaps. And because everyone was responsible for parts of the effort, no one was ultimately in charge. We took one large step to remedy these weaknesses by creating the Department of Homeland Security. The Department brings more than two dozen of the Federal Government's critical homeland security agencies and programs under one roof, allowing for unprecedented coordination and cooperation. It also created a Cabinet Secretary charged with managing the budgets and personnel of these agencies, and capable of providing a focal point for homeland programs and issues in the Cabinet and beyond. But we knew that in addition to creating a better organization, we would need to lay out a clear roadmap to galvanize our homeland defenses--at all levels of government and the private sector. That is what many of us called for and, regretfully, it is something this Nation still sorely lacks. The Administration did produce a ``National Strategy for Homeland Security'' in July 2002 that correctly identified many of the challenges we face in preparing to meet the threat of terrorism. But that document predates the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and is already out of date. More significantly, it failed to set priorities, clear deadlines and accountability for the vast array of homeland security tasks we face. As the highly regarded Gilmore Commission on terrorism noted in its final report last December: ``Much is still required in order to achieve an effective, comprehensive, unified national strategy and to translate vision into action. Notably absent is a clear prioritization for the use of scarce resources against a diffuse, unclear threat as part of the spectrum of threats--some significantly more common than terrorism. The panel has serious concern about the current state of homeland security efforts along the full spectrum from awareness to recovery, worried that efforts by the government may provide the perception of enhanced security that causes the Nation to become complacent about the many critical actions still required.'' While it is true that the Department of Homeland Security is proceeding with some more targeted strategies regarding specific areas of concern, these cannot replace a comprehensive strategy that sets the ultimate policies and priorities for our homeland effort. That is why I am introducing legislation requiring a new homeland security strategy that can provide the strong, precise national guidance we need on this critical issue. In a February 3, 2004 report, the General Accounting Office surveyed seven existing Federal strategies related to terrorism--including the National Strategy for Homeland Security--and laid out guiding principles to improve these strategies. My legislation incorporates these principles, which stress accountability and prioritization as requirements for a new homeland security strategy. The new strategy must include a hierarchy of strategic goals and indicate the specific activities needed to achieve those goals, as well as the likely costs, and how such funds should be generated. In other words, the strategy must make real choices about priorities and resources. The current strategy identifies many goals, but rarely provides deadlines for action, standards or performance measures to assess progress, or details on the resources required for stated initiatives. The strategy must clearly spell out organizational roles and responsibilities, including the proper roles of State, local, private and international actors and the coordinating mechanisms to bring these actors together. Almost three years after 9/11, we still too often must ask ``who is in charge?'' of key pieces of our homeland security agenda. And, critically, the homeland security strategy must address how it relates to other Federal strategies regarding terrorist threats, and how the strategies will be integrated. The legislation also highlights certain substantive areas that should be addressed, such as a thoroughgoing strategy to maximize information sharing related to homeland security throughout the Federal Government and with state and local officials and, where appropriate, the private sector. The strategy must look at preparing the public health sector to detect and respond to terrorist attacks, at integrating military capabilities into our homeland security planning, at building all- hazards preparedness throughout all levels of government and the private sector, and securing our critical infrastructure, much of which is in private hands. The bill would require that the strategy be written every four years, with updates every two years and annual progress reports to be submitted in conjunction with the President's annual budget request. Recognizing that many Federal agencies outside the Department of Homeland Security play a critical part in homeland security, it calls on the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security to help the Secretary construct the strategy. Importantly, it would create an independent panel of experts to review the strategy and offer alternative proposals as appropriate--a so-called ``Team B'' to provide decision makers with alternative perspectives and solutions for consideration. This nonpartisan panel, to be called the Homeland Security Commission, would consist of nine members appointed by the Secretary in consultation with Congress. The members would be recognized experts in the field of homeland security and cannot be current officers or employees of the Federal Government. This Commission is modeled on the successful National Defense Panel, which helped guide strategic planning for our military forces. This Commission can help ensure that we marshal all the best ideas to defend our homeland and do not fall into complacent, or narrow ways of thinking about the threats we face. We know that terrorists are always adapting their strategies and techniques. We must do no less. We meet today amid ongoing, and indeed heightened, threats of terrorist attacks on our homeland. We need not be intimidated, but we must be prepared. A new and more forceful national strategy will help energize and organize our resources--at all levels of government and within the private sector--to meet this threat. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation to give us such a strategy. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I rise today with Senator Collins to introduce legislation that would promote the sharing of homeland security information across all levels of our Government, and to provide funding and support necessary to enable our first responders to communicate better with one another than they are able to do now during a terrorist attack. I am delighted that the chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Collins, is my lead cosponsor on this legislation, and that another member of the committee, Senator Akaka, is a cosponsor, as is Senator Clinton. One of the most painful and enduring lessons we should have learned from the September 11 attacks is that information about terrorist activities must be shared among Federal and other agencies to protect the American people's security. Unfortunately, almost 3 years after the attacks we have still not seen the kind of improvement and information sharing at all levels we need to have. The widely respected, nonpartisan Markle Foundation, in alliance with the Brookings Institution and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has looked at this problem at length and concluded that an entirely new approach is needed to the sharing of security information. According to the Markle Foundation, the cold war paradigm that strictly limited access to information is simply ill-suited to the challenges we face today in an age of terrorism. Sharing information among relevant law enforcement agencies and other public agencies is vital to protecting our people's security precisely because we cannot predict from which direction the first signs of potential attack will come as we pretty much could during the cold war. Yet the Federal Government has still developed neither a comprehensive strategy nor actual policies to change the 50-year-old cold war paradigm. We have to catch up quickly to win the war on terrorism. Equally troubling is that too many first responders still lack, believe it or not, the basic ability to talk to one another when responding to emergencies, including, of course, a terrorist attack, because their equipment does not communicate directly. We use a complicated term called ``interoperability'' to describe this situation. One of the most painful parts of the September 11 attacks in New York was the loss of more than 300 New York City firefighters and other law enforcement personnel who perished inside the collapsing Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. The look-backs at that day, probably including the one we will hear tomorrow from the September 11 Commission, lead a lot of people to conclude that we lost a lot of New York's finest-- firefighters, police officers, other public servants--because they could not communicate with one another on the equipment they had. That is no longer acceptable. The legislation we are introducing today addresses those challenges. First, we authorize $3.3 billion over 5 years to provide reliable and consistent funding to help law enforcement agencies around the country find solutions to this so-called interoperability problem. We create an Office of Information Sharing within the Department of Homeland Security to develop and implement a national strategy to achieve that goal. It simply is outrageous that those who are in uniform every day to protect our security cannot communicate with one another in a time of emergency because we have not given them good enough equipment to do that. Second, our legislation would require the Secretary of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the intelligence community and other Federal agencies, to establish a broad information exchange network modeled after the Markle Foundation recommendations which would break out of the cold war paradigm and allow full sharing of security information. Third, our legislation requires implementation of performance measures and genuine incentives to encourage employees to implement the changes that are necessary. As part of the continuing fight to keep America safe from terrorism, the test of our generation, all the cultural, technological, and administrative barriers that impede the flow of critically important homeland security information among different levels of Government and among agencies at the same level simply must be broken down. That requires an act of will and leadership, and then it requires funding. It is not going to come cheaply, but security of the American people never does come cheaply. We have the best military in the history of the world because we have invested in it. We are only going to have the best security at home from terrorism if we invest with similar generosity. A nonpartisan task force of the Council on Foreign Relations recommended that the Nation spend double what Senator Collins and I are proposing in this bill to ensure dependable interoperable communications. What we are asking seems like a lot of money, but it is half of what an independent group thinks is necessary to protect our Nation. This legislation will help us develop a new structure, a new paradigm of information sharing to guarantee that first responders and preventers can communicate effectively with one another and with other governmental agencies when they respond to terrorist attacks or any other emergencies that threaten the safety or well-being of people throughout our country. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that text of the legislation Senator Collins and I are introducing today be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to forge a comprehensive and effective strategy for our homeland security. Before 9/11, we did not truly perceive the threat of terrorism on our own soil, and what homeland security efforts we did have underway were badly divided. Dozens of agencies responsible for pieces of our homeland security were scattered across the Federal Government, and were largely unconnected to state and local officials and first responders on the front lines in our Nation's cities and towns. There were confusing overlaps and, more critically, treacherous gaps. And because everyone was responsible for parts of the effort, no one was ultimately in charge. We took one large step to remedy these weaknesses by creating the Department of Homeland Security. The Department brings more than two dozen of the Federal Government's critical homeland security agencies and programs under one roof, allowing for unprecedented coordination and cooperation. It also created a Cabinet Secretary charged with managing the budgets and personnel of these agencies, and capable of providing a focal point for homeland programs and issues in the Cabinet and beyond. But we knew that in addition to creating a better organization, we would need to lay out a clear roadmap to galvanize our homeland defenses--at all levels of government and the private sector. That is what many of us called for and, regretfully, it is something this Nation still sorely lacks. The Administration did produce a ``National Strategy for Homeland Security'' in July 2002 that correctly identified many of the challenges we face in preparing to meet the threat of terrorism. But that document predates the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and is already out of date. More significantly, it failed to set priorities, clear deadlines and accountability for the vast array of homeland security tasks we face. As the highly regarded Gilmore Commission on terrorism noted in its final report last December: ``Much is still required in order to achieve an effective, comprehensive, unified national strategy and to translate vision into action. Notably absent is a clear prioritization for the use of scarce resources against a diffuse, unclear threat as part of the spectrum of threats--some significantly more common than terrorism. The panel has serious concern about the current state of homeland security efforts along the full spectrum from awareness to recovery, worried that efforts by the government may provide the perception of enhanced security that causes the Nation to become complacent about the many critical actions still required.'' While it is true that the Department of Homeland Security is proceeding with some more targeted strategies regarding specific areas of concern, these cannot replace a comprehensive strategy that sets the ultimate policies and priorities for our homeland effort. That is why I am introducing legislation requiring a new homeland security strategy that can provide the strong, precise national guidance we need on this critical issue. In a February 3, 2004 report, the General Accounting Office surveyed seven existing Federal strategies related to terrorism--including the National Strategy for Homeland Security--and laid out guiding principles to improve these strategies. My legislation incorporates these principles, which stress accountability and prioritization as requirements for a new homeland security strategy. The new strategy must include a hierarchy of strategic goals and indicate the specific activities needed to achieve those goals, as well as the likely costs, and how such funds should be generated. In other words, the strategy must make real choices about priorities and resources. The current strategy identifies many goals, but rarely provides deadlines for action, standards or performance measures to assess progress, or details on the resources required for stated initiatives. The strategy must clearly spell out organizational roles and responsibilities, including the proper roles of State, local, private and international actors and the coordinating mechanisms to bring these actors together. Almost three years after 9/11, we still too often must ask ``who is in charge?'' of key pieces of our homeland security agenda. And, critically, the homeland security strategy must address how it relates to other Federal strategies regarding terrorist threats, and how the strategies will be integrated. The legislation also highlights certain substantive areas that should be addressed, such as a thoroughgoing strategy to maximize information sharing related to homeland security throughout the Federal Government and with state and local officials and, where appropriate, the private sector. The strategy must look at preparing the public health sector to detect and respond to terrorist attacks, at integrating military capabilities into our homeland security planning, at building all- hazards preparedness throughout all levels of government and the private sector, and securing our critical infrastructure, much of which is in private hands. The bill would require that the strategy be written every four years, with updates every two years and annual progress reports to be submitted in conjunction with the President's annual budget request. Recognizing that many Federal agencies outside the Department of Homeland Security play a critical part in homeland security, it calls on the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security to help the Secretary construct the strategy. Importantly, it would create an independent panel of experts to review the strategy and offer alternative proposals as appropriate--a so-called ``Team B'' to provide decision makers with alternative perspectives and solutions for consideration. This nonpartisan panel, to be called the Homeland Security Commission, would consist of nine members appointed by the Secretary in consultation with Congress. The members would be recognized experts in the field of homeland security and cannot be current officers or employees of the Federal Government. This Commission is modeled on the successful National Defense Panel, which helped guide strategic planning for our military forces. This Commission can help ensure that we marshal all the best ideas to defend our homeland and do not fall into complacent, or narrow ways of thinking about the threats we face. We know that terrorists are always adapting their strategies and techniques. We must do no less. We meet today amid ongoing, and indeed heightened, threats of terrorist attacks on our homeland. We need not be intimidated, but we must be prepared. A new and more forceful national strategy will help energize and organize our resources--at all levels of government and within the private sector--to meet this threat. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation to give us such a strategy. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to express my opposition to the Federal marriage amendment because I believe this effort to amend the Constitution is premature, unnecessarily divisive, and denies our States rights that they have long had. My opposition to this constitutional amendment is, in effect, quite similar to the views stated by Vice President Dick Cheney in our debate during the 2000 campaign. Mr. Cheney said then, when it comes to gay marriage: I think different States are likely to come to different conclusions, and that is appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a Federal policy in this area. I try to be open minded about it as much as I can and tolerant of those relationships. He was widely applauded for those remarks, and rightly so. His wife Lynne Cheney said this just this past Sunday: The formulation he used in 2000 was very good. She is right. Marriage is an issue best left to the States in our constitutional and legal frameworks. Unfortunately, in its pursuit of this amendment, the administration has abandoned the openminded and tolerant position Vice President Cheney took in 2000 and, apparently, he, too, has done so. That is unfortunate and it is divisive. The Constitution is, after all, our Nation's most sacred secular document. That is a combination of words that may surprise some, to call something secular sacred. But we all know intuitively that is what the Constitution is. In a literal way, the Constitution was adopted by its own words, to ``secure the blessings'' of liberty, which the Declaration of Independence says are the people's endowment from their Creator. For well over 200 years, this document has provided our Government with its guiding hand, its blueprint for governing, and, equally important, a clear and enforceable articulation of the limits of Federal Government power. Part of the genius of the Constitution lies in the fact that, as it unites us, it also stands above us and our elected representatives, articulating enduring governing principles, rather than providing a quick answer for every new day's question. The brilliance of our Nation's Founders was that they drafted a Constitution but left it to succeeding generations of legislators, both in Washington and in the States, to decide the issues of the day, with the recognition that statutes can be changed with relative ease, while a Constitution endures for the long term. Those who wish to elevate an issue to the constitutional level, therefore, in my opinion, bear a heavy burden of showing it is absolutely necessary to do so. That is not just my view; it is the clear consensus of our Nation throughout its history. Only 27 times over the past 217 years has the Constitution been amended, and the first 10 of those amendments constitute our revered Bill of Rights, passed almost as part of the Constitution itself. So I have concluded that we should accept the proposed amendment before us today only if we are absolutely convinced not just of its rightness but of its necessity. After looking at the laws of the land today regarding marriage and closely examining the text of the proposed amendment before us, I conclude that burden has not been met. Let me be clear. I believe marriage is a legal status that should be granted only to the union of one man and one woman. I believe that because I also believe the marriage of a man and a woman is the best way to sustain the human race, through the procreation and rearing of children. Therefore, it is in the interest of our society to attach special benefits to the relationship of a man and a woman joined together in marriage. That is why I voted for DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, in 1996, and that is why I still support that law today. DOMA makes absolutely clear that marriage, under Federal law, which is our area of jurisdiction, is a status that should be attainable only by one man and one woman, and that any State's decision to define marriage otherwise has no effect on marriage under Federal law or the laws of other States. In other words, we already have a Federal law on the books that precludes any couple other than an opposite-sex one from claiming Federal marriage benefits and that prevents one State from seeking to impose its view of marriage on its sister States. A constitutional amendment to that effect is therefore unnecessary at this time. There is a contemporary reality, however, that this amendment does not allow us the flexibility to recognize. Gay and lesbian couples exist. They are not going away. They also enjoy the rights promised in the Declaration as the endowment of their Creator. To say these couples and their children should be denied any legal protections or relieved of all legal responsibilities would, in my opinion, be unfair and inconsistent with the principles that were at the basis of the founding of our country. I presume most all of us would agree, for example, that someone should not be excluded from his dying life-partner's hospital room on the ground that their decades-long relationship has no legal status. Probably many of us who have thought about it would not want to see someone who raised her partner's biological children as her own and provided the family's principal means of support be able to simply walk away without any financial obligations to the child if the couple ends their relationship. I do not profess to know exactly how and in what form these rights and responsibilities should be extended to gay and lesbian couples. Different States are already providing different answers to those difficult and important questions. But I do know this is a discussion and a debate that will and should continue to the benefit of our country. I understand that some argue that the Constitution's full faith and credit clause makes inevitable that one State's decision to allow gay marriage will lead to gay marriage across the Nation. I respectfully disagree. I believe that DOMA is constitutional, a view I hope is shared by the overwhelming majority of my colleagues who voted for it. If DOMA is declared unconstitutional in the future and the full faith and credit clause found to mandate national recognition of one State's definition of marriage, there will be enough time for those of us who oppose gay marriage to act statutorily or constitutionally. In sum, this is an unnecessary amendment that wrongly and certainly prematurely deprives States of their traditional ability to define marriage. I plan to cast my vote against it and urge my colleagues to do the same. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Go right ahead.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I yield to the Senator for a request.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, our Nation wrestles with a medical mystery that affects the health and very lives of millions of Americans every year: Why do patients with similar ailments have such disparate outcomes? Albert Einstein once said: ``I cannot believe that God plays dice with the world.'' I would never quibble with Einstein. And besides, I strongly believe that myself. I also believe we should aspire to that ideal in the earthly institutions we create, like our health care system. Medical outcomes should not be a matter of luck. Treatment should be as predictable and equal as possible within the bounds of science and human fallibility. But that is not the system we have today. Study after study shows that we have created a health care casino where the quality of care seems to have as much to do with the luck of the dice as anything else. In America, good medical care for all should be a given--not a gamble. That is why today I am introducing legislation I call FairCare. FairCare will give us the tools we need to begin eliminating these across-the-board problems of medical disparities among patients with identical ailments. In the broadest sense, we know we have two problems--quality of care and disparity of care. While these problems are distinct and separate-- solving either will help solve both. Let me dramatize the kind of odds we are talking about when a patient enters the healthcare system. I would ask my colleagues to imagine for a moment that they are in a casino, rolling dice and need a five or a nine to win. The odds of you winning with either of those numbers is about 60 percent. Of course, that means you have a 40 percent chance of losing. Now, if you enjoy gambling--and are not betting a lot of money--maybe that's fun. But would you bet your house on those odds? Or your children's college fund? Or your health--or your life? Well, the odds in our imaginary dice game are the precise odds we send people into the health care system every day. A recent study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine said that about 40 percent of patients reported medical errors in the care of either themselves or a loved one. The cost of these mistakes is staggering. Between 44,000 and 100,000 people die each year because of those medical mistakes. To put those shocking numbers in perspective, imagine if you will that our nation experienced a day like September the 11th, at least twice a month, every month--for a year. Overall, the cost of not getting it right the first time represents a yearly loss to the national economy of $17 to $29 billion. This is due largely to the medical complications that must be treated down the line because of the initial medical errors, as well as lost wages and productivity. Now, while most Americans have problems finding high-quality health care at a reasonable cost, racial and ethnic minorities fare the worst. Medical studies also show that: When actors portrayed patients with identical complaints of chest pain, women and African Americans were 40 percent less likely to have their complaints taken seriously and be referred for further diagnostic tests. Hispanics with asthma are almost twice as likely as white patients to face largely-avoidable emergency rooms visits or have the illness limit their daily activities. Infants born to American Indians and Alaskan Natives are twenty-five percent more likely than the national average to die in the first year of life. Asian American women are 20 percent less likely to get life-saving screening exams for cervical cancer than white women. And many of these disparities persist, even when factors like income and access to health care are taken into account. Why is this? The answer is: We don't exactly know. But it is clear that we do not have a color blind healthcare system. And unequal treatment is Un-American. We cannot tolerate it. Rather, we must understand it, confront it, and fix it. Besides, solving this medical mystery for the most severely affected minority groups will improve healthcare for everyone else as well. In other words, if we can dramatically increase the quality of medical care, unfair disparities will decline and all will benefit. The clues to solving the problems of both medical quality and healthcare disparities are there. We just have to go find them. That will require gathering crucial information that will help us clearly identify the problems. Then we can help finance the solutions that will cure them. That's why we need FairCare. To begin, we need data--we need to see where we have quality problems and where we have disparities in care. FairCare will bring the medical and patient communities together to help us better measure healthcare quality in a scientific way that will give us our first comprehensive glimpse of where the problems lie. Once glimpsed, FairCare can begin to fund improvement efforts developed by local hospitals and community health centers that fit the needs of their local neighborhoods. FairCare will use the reach and resources of Medicare to reward hospitals that improve quality and reduce disparities. In recent testimony before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health Care, Glenn Hackbarth, Chairman of Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, said he agreed with this approach. ``It is time for Medicare to take the next step in quality improvement and put financial incentives for quality directly into its payment systems,'' he said. Under FairCare, community health centers not part of the Medicare system will be eligible for grants and bonuses. In other words, FairCare is a carrots program, not a sticks program--it rewards hospitals and health centers that perform--that make progress in implementing quality healthcare and reducing healthcare disparities. We will also provide tax relief to help FairCare providers cover the cost of their malpractice insurance. Taken together, FairCare will give our most overburdened and financially strapped healthcare providers--that act to deliver quality medicine--the help they need to give their communities the help they need. And when they succeed, we will all win. When they succeed, good medical care for all will be a given--not a gamble. Just as God does not play dice with the world, we will no longer play dice with the lives of our most vulnerable--the sick and the ailing. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and statements of support be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to extend my congratulations and gratitude to the Westport Volunteer Emergency Medical Service, WVEMS, of Westport, CT, which is celebrating a quarter century of unparalleled dedication to public safety and public service. Volunteerism is part of the American way, and the volunteer emergency personnel of WVEMS take on a particularly demanding and challenging form of community service. These men and women take time out of their busy lives and careers, or from well-earned retirement, to provide life-saving services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They work in close cooperation with police and fire departments, using state-of-the-art skills, in pre-hospital situations. WVEMS volunteers also perform other important community services, including teaching first aid and CPR classes. The men and women of WVEMS have established a remarkable legacy. During their 25 years of service, they have logged over half a million volunteer hours and cared for over 45,000 ill or injured men, women, and children. Fifteen of the original founders still serve with a selfless commitment to their cause, and each has been designated an American Red Cross Unsung Hero. These exceptional men and women are Edward and Elizabeth Audley, Patricia Audley, Sharon Barnett, Russel M. Blair, Susan DeWitt, Michael Feigin, Richard Frazier, Neil Harding, Thomas M. Keenan, Kathleen Todd, Alan Yoder, Isabel Blair, Alan Stolz, Nettie Skinner, and Pasquale Salvo. I would also like to commend Jay Paretzky and April Anne Yoder, who have also been with the WVEMS for a quarter century. All of the other active members of the WVEMS certainly deserve our recognition, as well: William Puterbaugh, Norman Coltin, Sandra McPherson, Jeffrey T. Lea, Andrew Dinitz, Loretta S. Harsche, Marge Costa, Christine A. Evans, Todd M. Smith, Mark A. Blake, Anthony F. Santo, Donald E. Smith III, Thomas F. Burrows, Martha M. McGorry, Elizabeth Slattery, Chris VanDeusen, Diane Salvo, Benjamin Frimmer, Barbara F. Wood, Barbara Babash, Arlene M. Healy, Amy Smith, Linda Canterbury, Albert Bassett, Mary Jane Cross, KC Duffy, Linda Green, Carole Grob, Dorothy Harris, Gordon Joseloff, Chris Sanders, Whitney Cusa, James Flint, Nicole Donovan, Toni Cribari, Mary Minard, Terrence Blake, Michele Brewster, Michael Falbo, Cheryl Jones, Michael Quan, Rico Tiberio, Sylvia Lempit, Susannah Kehl, AnnaLiisa Joseloff, James Hinckley, Nanci Jenkins, David Heinmiller, Rainy Broomfield, Ronald Carkner, Donna Patchen, Robert Redman, Olivia Weeks, Courtenay Quinn, Joseph Devermann, Linda Gale, Jean Marie Wiesen, Nancy Strong, Gregory Coghlan, Paul Resnick, Barbra Utting, Adam Sappern, Nancy Fusaro, Wendy Hill, Megan Watson, Kristin Ancona, Kathryn Min, William Min, Susan Parks, Jamie Talbot, Michael Rickard, Marc Hartog, Michael Engelskirger, Craig Kupson, Elizabeth Jennings, Glenn Eisen, Angela Chichila, Anna Dowdle, Ashley Hawley, Andrea Hoboken, Dustin Schur, Jackie Stenson, Carol Boas, Yannick Passemart, Kerry Volmar, Michael Wilmot, Danielle Faul, David Bodach, Christin Giordano, Zack Klomberg, Jordan Kunkes, Alma Loya, Whitney Riggio, Kimber Roberts, Alicia Wong, Karen Bizzak, Margaret Russell, Richard Arriaga, Carol Dixon, Gabrielle O'Halloran, Daniel Rappaport, Dora Sweet, Lois Benfield, Adele Donohue, Susan Shewchuk, Nancy Toll, Pamela Newnham, Matthew Rees, Richard Celotto, John Sommers, Caroline Andrew, James Gray, Stephanie Howson, Rebecca Kamins, Kaitlyn Mello, Elizabeth Parks, Christian Renne, Rob Stewart, Emma Trucks, Christina Voonasis, Maryanne Boyle, Robert Dowling, Yashasvi Jhangiani, Maribeth Nixon and Steve Brothers. To the men and women of WVEMS, thank you for going above and beyond the call of duty to serve those in need. Well done.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, our Nation wrestles with a medical mystery that affects the health and very lives of millions of Americans every year: Why do patients with similar ailments have such disparate outcomes? Albert Einstein once said: ``I cannot believe that God plays dice with the world.'' I would never quibble with Einstein. And besides, I strongly believe that myself. I also believe we should aspire to that ideal in the earthly institutions we create, like our health care system. Medical outcomes should not be a matter of luck. Treatment should be as predictable and equal as possible within the bounds of science and human fallibility. But that is not the system we have today. Study after study shows that we have created a health care casino where the quality of care seems to have as much to do with the luck of the dice as anything else. In America, good medical care for all should be a given--not a gamble. That is why today I am introducing legislation I call FairCare. FairCare will give us the tools we need to begin eliminating these across-the-board problems of medical disparities among patients with identical ailments. In the broadest sense, we know we have two problems--quality of care and disparity of care. While these problems are distinct and separate-- solving either will help solve both. Let me dramatize the kind of odds we are talking about when a patient enters the healthcare system. I would ask my colleagues to imagine for a moment that they are in a casino, rolling dice and need a five or a nine to win. The odds of you winning with either of those numbers is about 60 percent. Of course, that means you have a 40 percent chance of losing. Now, if you enjoy gambling--and are not betting a lot of money--maybe that's fun. But would you bet your house on those odds? Or your children's college fund? Or your health--or your life? Well, the odds in our imaginary dice game are the precise odds we send people into the health care system every day. A recent study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine said that about 40 percent of patients reported medical errors in the care of either themselves or a loved one. The cost of these mistakes is staggering. Between 44,000 and 100,000 people die each year because of those medical mistakes. To put those shocking numbers in perspective, imagine if you will that our nation experienced a day like September the 11th, at least twice a month, every month--for a year. Overall, the cost of not getting it right the first time represents a yearly loss to the national economy of $17 to $29 billion. This is due largely to the medical complications that must be treated down the line because of the initial medical errors, as well as lost wages and productivity. Now, while most Americans have problems finding high-quality health care at a reasonable cost, racial and ethnic minorities fare the worst. Medical studies also show that: When actors portrayed patients with identical complaints of chest pain, women and African Americans were 40 percent less likely to have their complaints taken seriously and be referred for further diagnostic tests. Hispanics with asthma are almost twice as likely as white patients to face largely-avoidable emergency rooms visits or have the illness limit their daily activities. Infants born to American Indians and Alaskan Natives are twenty-five percent more likely than the national average to die in the first year of life. Asian American women are 20 percent less likely to get life-saving screening exams for cervical cancer than white women. And many of these disparities persist, even when factors like income and access to health care are taken into account. Why is this? The answer is: We don't exactly know. But it is clear that we do not have a color blind healthcare system. And unequal treatment is Un-American. We cannot tolerate it. Rather, we must understand it, confront it, and fix it. Besides, solving this medical mystery for the most severely affected minority groups will improve healthcare for everyone else as well. In other words, if we can dramatically increase the quality of medical care, unfair disparities will decline and all will benefit. The clues to solving the problems of both medical quality and healthcare disparities are there. We just have to go find them. That will require gathering crucial information that will help us clearly identify the problems. Then we can help finance the solutions that will cure them. That's why we need FairCare. To begin, we need data--we need to see where we have quality problems and where we have disparities in care. FairCare will bring the medical and patient communities together to help us better measure healthcare quality in a scientific way that will give us our first comprehensive glimpse of where the problems lie. Once glimpsed, FairCare can begin to fund improvement efforts developed by local hospitals and community health centers that fit the needs of their local neighborhoods. FairCare will use the reach and resources of Medicare to reward hospitals that improve quality and reduce disparities. In recent testimony before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health Care, Glenn Hackbarth, Chairman of Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, said he agreed with this approach. ``It is time for Medicare to take the next step in quality improvement and put financial incentives for quality directly into its payment systems,'' he said. Under FairCare, community health centers not part of the Medicare system will be eligible for grants and bonuses. In other words, FairCare is a carrots program, not a sticks program--it rewards hospitals and health centers that perform--that make progress in implementing quality healthcare and reducing healthcare disparities. We will also provide tax relief to help FairCare providers cover the cost of their malpractice insurance. Taken together, FairCare will give our most overburdened and financially strapped healthcare providers--that act to deliver quality medicine--the help they need to give their communities the help they need. And when they succeed, we will all win. When they succeed, good medical care for all will be a given--not a gamble. Just as God does not play dice with the world, we will no longer play dice with the lives of our most vulnerable--the sick and the ailing. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and statements of support be printed in the Record.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to honor the Connecticut Forest and Park Association of Rockfall, CT, on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the creation of its Blue Blazed Hiking Trail System. The Connecticut Forest and Park Association is Connecticut's oldest conservation organization and Connecticut's citizens owe this organization a great debt of gratitude for all it has done to protect Connecticut's precious natural resources. Undoubtedly, the Blue Blazed Hiking Trail System is the crowning achievement in a long list of accomplishments that the Connecticut Forest and Park Association has realized since its founding in 1895. IN 1929, Edgar L. Heermance led a group of Connecticut Forest and Park Association members in establishing the Blue Blazed Hiking Trail System. Mr. Heermance and the dedicated group of volunteers that he led had a vision of a Statewide system of hiking trails that would serve to increase opportunities for all Connecticut residents to enjoy the outdoors and develop an appreciation for the immense beauty of the natural world. The first section of the Blue Blazed Hiking Trail system opened in 1931 and by 1937 the volunteers of the Connecticut Forest and Park Association had developed over four hundred miles of trails and published the Connecticut Walk Book; the first guidebook to the Blue Blazed Hiking Trail System. Seventy-five years after Edgar Heermance made his vision of a Statewide hiking trail system a reality, the blue Blazed Hiking Trail System has over ninety volunteer Trail Managers and hundreds of active volunteers donating over 7,000 of their time each year to this spectacular system of hiking trails. Currently, the Blue Blazed Hiking Trail System encompasses over seven hundred miles of trails in 69 Connecticut towns. In a true testament to the spirit of cooperation that led to the founding of this hiking trail network, over seventy- five percent of the land included in the Blue Blazed Hiking Trail System is privately owned and exists only through the cooperation of private landowners who are interested in promoting conservation and increasing outdoor recreational opportunities. This dynamic organization has continually both literally and figuratively blazed a trail for other conservation organizations to follow. I have confidence that the Connecticut Forest and Park Association and the Blue Blazed Hiking Trail System will enjoy continued success for many generations to come. Congratulations to the Connecticut Forest and Park Association on the creation of a remarkable legacy of leadership and excellence in the areas of conservation and outdoor recreation.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I rise in support of H.R. 4322, a bill to transfer the Nebraska Avenue complex property from the Navy to the General Services Administration, GSA, for use by the Department of Homeland Security, DHS, for its headquarters operations. One of the many exigencies surrounding the creation of DHS was the need to quickly find suitable space for the Department's operations. While many of the component agencies could--at least temporarily--remain in their current locations, there had to be new space for the Department's leadership and new programs. The Navy had previously been providing space at the Nebraska Avenue complex to the President's Office of Homeland Security, and the administration subsequently decided that the site should be used as a headquarters for the new Department for the immediate future. DHS already has some of its headquarters operations at the site, and plans to move additional staff to the property once the Navy has finished moving out. It is vital that DHS be able to move ahead with consolidating its headquarters operations and renovating the complex to meet its needs. It is also critical that the Navy be fairly compensated and that its displaced operations be able to move into new facilities. This legislation will allow all this to take place. This legislation formalizes the transfer of the property and provides for a payment mechanism for the Navy's temporary and permanent relocation costs. GSA, in keeping with its traditional responsibilities, will own the property and manage it for DHS, which shall be a tenant there. There has been a question about precisely how, under this legislation, to provide payment to the Navy, and which parties should bear which costs. Therefore, I am pleased to submit for the Record a letter from Joshua Bolten, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, that specifically clarifies this issue. DHS shall provide the Navy with compensation for its initial moving and interim relocation costs for the first year. This amount is already budgeted for fiscal year 2005. Meanwhile, OMB has agreed that GSA is the proper entity to supply funds to compensate the Navy for permanent relocation expenses. This legislation will allow GSA to provide those funds and, as this letter specifically makes clear, OMB pledges that it, on behalf of the Administration, will request adequate funds in the GSA budget after the first year for GSA to do so. This responds to my concern that forcing DHS to pay an undue share of the Navy's relocation expenses would dangerously burden limited resources for critical homeland security programs. I appreciate the OMB's and the Administration's efforts in clarifying its intentions on this matter.